Big school cost

At least $200m in school buildings are not fit for purpose and will have to be knocked down, Education Minister Chris Hipkins has said. It is one of the examples of underinvestment which Labour has promised to release in the lead-up to the Budget. In the House, Hipkins said there had been no increase in universal funding for early childhood education in a decade. “This means that for centres with mainly qualified teachers, their funding rate has declined by 12 per cent in real terms since 2009, and the decline is 14 per cent for kindergartens.”